The Official Recordings Forum Rules - MUST READ!

Please note that these rules are in addition to the official rules/terms of use for UG (available here for anyone unsure of them) and are not the only rules that apply to your participation in this forum - they are merely rules that we wish to specifically state, that may not be clear in (or even apply to) the rules laid out for general use of the site.

We, the moderation team, have agreed upon separating offenses into three categories, in accordance with the severity of the offenses and their consequential punishments. These categories should give a rough guideline for the procedures and rules we aim to uphold, as well as avoiding the need to give users extra chances if they claim to not know about specific rules. They are, however, guidelines and the punishments applicable to an offense are given at the discretion of the moderator responding to the individual breach of the rules.

These categories should be fairly explanatory, but so that everybody is 100% clear - any offense falling into the 'Bannable Offenses' category will automatically incur a ban, the length of which is dependent on previous bans on the user's record (the staging of bans is commonly known, but the first ban is 30 days; the second is 45; the third is for 60 days and a fourth ban is a 'perma-ban', resulting in withdrawn posting and access privileges permanently).

'Warnable Offenses' are those that break rules enforced on the site, but are not deemed as deserving of an immediate ban unless the user frequently incurs these infractions. It should also be known that if you already have a warning active on your account (warnings are active for a period of time depending on how many previous times a user has been banned - the starting period is 30 days), committing a warnable offense will result in the user being banned, as the site rules state that two active warnings equates to a ban.

'Frownable Offenses' will not result in a punishment, other than a potential talking down by forum regulars and the moderation team, but frequent disregard for these guidelines may result in official warnings if continued. As such, these offenses can be considered punishable by 'verbal warning' unless the user shows no visible signs of understanding and continues to breach these rules.

Bannable Offenses

# Signing up to advertise your product/company/service, with little or no visible intention of interacting with the community or to provide any answers to the thread(s) posted in.

# Repeatedly committing 'warnable offenses' of the same nature, with a clear disregard for prior warnings. Doing so twice, within the active warning period, will automatically result in a ban, regardless of how severe the warnable offenses were.

# Encouraging or tricking other users into actions that may harm themselves/their equipment, with the knowledge/intention of what will likely occur.

# Heavy flaming of another user, where the act goes beyond a few petty insults, may result in an instant ban if the moderator feels the severity of the insults/flaming is enough to warrant skipping a warning altogether.

Warnable Offenses

# Trolling or spamming other users, with no visible sign of light-hearted comedic intentions (i.e a joke between friends) when unprovoked. In particular, doing so while adding nothing to the discussion of the thread is very likely to result in a warning.

# Flaming another user, with the visible intention to cause upset (including no visible sign of a joke). Stuff like this can not only offend other users (UG is a family site, where minors are able to view all content - please act accordingly, and maturely), but it also typically derails the thread into a bout of proverbial mud-slinging, and is rarely contributory to the discussion at hand.

# Promoting or encouraging piracy of any form (software or music piracy; not the 'Arg! Avast ye landlubbers!' kind). Repeat offenders will skip straight to instant bans.

Frowned-Upon Offenses

# Using the phrase "It's the 'industry standard'..." to suggest something, with no other argument to confirm your statement. These claims, while some of them may be true, hold no power or wisdom and the most-common is not always the best - if jumping off a cliff (with no parachute) was the industry standard way to descend a mountain quickly, would you do it?

# Starting a thread to ask a question that has been asked many times before. This applies particularly for queries such as 'Which interface/microphone/DAW/___ program/etc. ?' as there are often others on the front page anyway, and the search bar is available for a reason! Please use the official sticky threads for asking questions of these nature (Interface/Amp Sim threads etc., or the Official Chat thread if none of the others apply).

# Creating threads asking for help/advice on matters that are already addressed in existing stickies. This also applies to asking questions that are easily googled, and not complex in nature. This further applies to those wishing for mixing advice without providing examples of the mix they are working on - this is also likely to result in little response, however, as this sort of query belongs in the Official 'Crit My Mix' Thread, stuck at the top of the forum.